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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Why your recruitment practices are terrible

For some reason, my inbox and LinkedIn have blown up with messages from recruiters. In general, their attempts at getting my attention have been terrible, here is why:

You work for a recruiting company verses an actual company, staffing firms are a major turn off, if you are working for someone else, get an email address with that company.

You have 500+ connections on LinkedIn. This basically says to me all you want is to extend your network and I don't want you bother my network the same way you are bothering me. I also see you've connected with someone else I know, I'll ask them how you've helped them, chances are, you haven't.

You company website is terrible, like 1990's terrible. If you are so good at hiring, hire a web developer for your own firm to get your site up to date.

Your connection emails are boring, where is the excitement and inspiration?

You are trying to hire me based on something I've already done. If I want the same job, I likely know people in my sector and will work for another opportunity through my own network of people I trust verses someone I've just met and is selling me so they can get the referral bonus. At least offer something new and exciting in the email, sell me.

You are trying to hire me given a dollar amount, I can ask for this myself and I am not leaving or coming for money.

You left the job details out of the initial note and made reference to the missing data in the communication. This shows you are not paying attention to detail and you've made me feel like I am one of 100 emails you've send today verses a great find. Google has solved the problem of reminding you to attach documents, remember to use it.

You haven't referenced my goals in your communication to me, this matters to me.

You're approaching hiring me as a staffing solution because I've been in consulting. I want to hear about exactly what I'd be working on. I've been down that path before.

If I've actually responded to you and I don't get an email back, then that's a winning conversation. Again, you likely are trying to just get access to my network on LinkedIn and is why I replied without accepting to add you to my network.

That's mostly it. If I've offended you as a recruiter, I am sorry, but you likely need to assess your practices at that point and think about why I haven't responded and try again.